“What is her real name?”

“I do not know; few in Deadwood do.  It is said, however, that she comes of a Virginia City, Nevada, family of respectability and intelligence.”

At this juncture there was a great hubbub outside, and instinctively the twain drew their revolvers, expecting that Catamount Cass and his toughs had discovered their retreat, and were about to make an attack.  But soon the gang were beard to tramp away, making the night hideous with their hoarse yells.

“They’ll pay a visit to every shanty in Deadwood,” said Harris, with a grim smile, “and if they don’t find us, which they won’t, they’ll h’ist more than a barrel of bug-juice over their defeat.  Come, let’s be going.”

They left the building and once more emerged onto the darkened street, Ned taking the lead.

“Follow me, now,” he said, tightening his belt, “and we’ll get home before sunrise, after all.”

He struck out up the gulch, or, rather, down it, for his course lay southward.  Redburn followed, and in fifteen minutes the lights of Deadwood—­magic city of the wilderness—­were left behind.  Harris led the way along the rugged mountain stage-road, that, after leaving Deadwood on its way to Camp Crook and Custer City in the south, runs alternately through deep, dark canyons and gorges, with an ease and rapidity that showed him to be well acquainted with the route.  About three miles below Deadwood he struck a trail through a transverse canyon running north-west, through which flowed a small stream, known as Brown’s creek.  The bottom was level and smooth, and a brisk walk of a half-hour brought them to where a horse was tied to an alder sapling.

“You mount and ride on ahead until you come to the end of the canyon,” said Harris, untying the horse.  “I will follow on after you, and be there almost as soon as you.”

Redburn would have offered some objections, but the other motioned for him to mount and be off, so he concluded it best to obey.

The animal was a fiery one, and soon carried him out of sight of Ned, whom he left standing in the yellow moonlight.  Sooner than he expected the gorge came to an abrupt termination in the face of a stupendous wall of rock, and nothing remained to do but wait for young Harris.

He soon came, trotting leisurely up, only a trifle flushed in countenance.

“This way!” he said, and seizing the animal by the bit he led horse and rider into a black, gaping fissure in one side of the canyon, that had hitherto escaped Redburn’s notice.  It was a large, narrow, subterranean passage, barely large enough to admit the horse and rider.  Redburn soon was forced to dismount and bring up the rear.

“How far do we journey in this shape?” he demanded, after what seemed to him a long while.

“No further,” replied Ned, and the next instant they emerged into a small, circular pocket in the midst of the mountains—­one of those beauteous flower-strewn valleys which are often found in the Black Hills.